View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerJohn Hardaway: "I can still see the night he was shooting me. He was squatting down, pulling that trigger. That will never go away. ... Why would he do a person like that?"

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nearly 30 years ago, John Hardaway was heading home from work when Frank Spisak, a self-proclaimed modern-day Nazi, ambushed him at a rapid-transit station and shot him seven times in his arm and right torso, leaving Hardaway for dead on the platform.

Hardaway survived, but the shooting left him with chronic pain in his right hand and the vivid memory of an attack that characterized the senseless and brutal nature of Spisak's 1982 killing spree on Cleveland State University's campus.

Spisak is set to die Thursday for his rampage, which claimed the lives of three people at CSU -- the Rev. Horace Rickerson; CSU student Brian Warford; and Timothy Sheehan, CSU's assistant superintendent for buildings and grounds.

Prosecutors said he targeted Hardaway, whom Spisak had never met, Rickerson and Warford because they were black. Sheehan was a potential witness in Rickerson's killing, prosecutors said.

"I can still see the night he was shooting me," Hardaway, 83, said in a recent interview at his one-bedroom apartment on Cleveland's East Side. "He was squatting down, pulling that trigger. That will never go away. It ain't as bad as it was, but it hits me hard sometimes. Why would he do a person like that?"

Spisak's execution, after he spent more than 27 years on death row, will be the first of Gov. John Kasich's term. Spisak, 59, is among the longest-serving Ohio inmates on death row.

But recent comments from an Ohio Supreme Court justice have given new life to Spisak's attempts to avoid execution. Justice Paul Pfeifer, a Republican, called this year for an end to the death penalty law because he said it is not being applied as originally intended.

View full sizePD fileJohn Hardaway, whom Frank Spisak shot multiple times in 1982, shows scars from some of the bullet wounds in this 1982 photo.

Based on Pfeifer's comments, Spisak's lawyers have asked to delay the execution until the constitutionality of Ohio's death penalty is decided in court. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request on Tuesday. Alan Rossman, Spisak's federal public defender, said Tuesday evening that he intends to file the same request with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite the last-ditch attempt to delay the execution, Hardaway said he is relieved Spisak is headed for the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

He feared Spisak would outlive him as the appeals process carried on and on. "I'll go down on my knees, on the side of my bed every night, to pray and see if I would be able to live," Hardaway said. "I didn't know if I'd be living this long after all that happened."

The U.S. Supreme Court denied what was thought to be Spisak's final legal appeal in January 2010. Earlier this year, Spisak's lawyers asked the Ohio Parole Board and Kasich to spare their client's life, saying he is severely mentally ill with a bipolar disorder.

The Parole Board was not convinced the mental illness outweighed the nature of his crimes. The board unanimously recommended that Kasich, a Republican, deny Spisak's clemency request. Last week, Kasich followed the recommendation.

"Spisak killed three people, tried to kill at least one other and shot a fifth in his admitted plan to kill as many African-Americans as possible and start a race war in Cleveland," the board said in its report to Kasich. "A recommendation for mercy is not warranted in this case."

Spisak said he committed the killings because he was a follower of Adolf Hitler and was in a war for survival "of the Aryan people," according to court records.

Trial story from July 16, 1983

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Numerous mental-health professionals evaluated Spisak, who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, before his 1983 trial. He was deemed competent when he killed.

Aside from the violence he carried out, Spisak's life also was marked by socially bizarre behavior.

He experimented with cross-dressing and was confused about his gender, preferring to be called Frances Anne. During his trial, he wore a Hitler-style mustache and saluted the Nazi leader in court.

His lawyers still refer to him as Frances.

The lawyers, Rossman and Michael Benza, are among those scheduled to witness Spisak's death by injection. Other witnesses include Warford's brother and sister, Sheehan's daughter and Judge Donald Nugent, who prosecuted the case.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Brendan Sheehan, whose legal career was inspired by his father's murder, said neither he nor his family would comment before Thursday's execution.

Hardaway said he would like to see Spisak die but does not have the means to travel to Lucasville.

A former Georgia sharecropper who arrived in Cleveland at age 26, Hardaway was a factory worker at Production Finishing Co. on Cleveland's West Side the night he was shot.

It was about 11 p.m. when Hardaway walked up the transit station's stairs to catch his train. He had just cashed his paycheck, and about $40 fell to the ground as he was shot. Yet Spisak never said anything to him and didn't take the money, Hardaway said.

Hardaway was losing consciousness as he lay on the station's platform. A train operator soon found him and called for help. He was hospitalized for about a month, then returned to work.

"He was shot seven times and was back a month later," said Jim Kelly, whose uncle supervised Hardaway.

"He's a survivor. He got to see this guy's face while he was putting bullets through him and live through it."

In 1984, Hardaway sued Spisak and his accomplice, Ronald Reddish, who assisted Spisak before the shooting. Hardaway sought $1 million, citing emotional distress due to the attack.

A judge granted a default judgment in Hardaway's favor, but Spisak and Reddish, who was convicted of the attempted murder of Hardaway, already had been convicted and had no assets to satisfy the judgment, Hardaway's lawyer, William White, said on Tuesday.

"It's very frustrating -- you can't make a recovery," White said. "It's not unusual, it's just painful."

Hardaway expressed hope that the publicity surrounding Spisak's execution would somehow help him recover some of the money he asked for in the lawsuit. He said he needs a new hearing aid.

In some respects, Hardaway, who has two grown children, has come to terms with the assault at the rapid station. He no longer carries in his wallet the old newspaper clipping of Spisak's face, complete with Hitler mustache. He said putting the shooting behind him has allowed him to keep a level head.

"White people was always good to me. Even in the country, in the South, there were some good ones and some bad ones," Hardaway said. "I never had no hard feelings toward white people at all, even after the shooting happened to me. I can't live with no hate."

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